A view of the world from the Wairarapa

Environment

December 11, 2012

One of the amazing discoveries I made when I moved from Wellington to the Wairarapa 25 years ago was the night sky. Thousands and thousands of stars in every direction. Satellites blinking their path across the sky, meteroids (shooting stars) making their final journey towards oblivion as they enter the atmosphere.

City dwellers, thanks to light pollution, miss out on most of this. The video also suggests that there are health impacts for both people and animals from light pollution. And going from a brightly-lit area to a dark one poses its own dangers for road users.

Jason Davis' video both highlights the problems and provides some ideas for reducing light pollution.

And in the meantime, if you find yourself in rural New Zealand during the holidays, take time to look at the Milky Way. You might even see a satellite.

the Indonesian government has temporarily suspended the license of Asia Pacific
Resources International Holding Limited for developing an area
of forest and peatland in Sumatra pending a review of the company's
permits.

October 15, 2009

Plastic waste is a worldwide problem. I was shocked by the mountain of plastic at the Masterton Transfer Station, at Nursery Road.

Looking more closely at this mountain I could see a variety of different plastics all jumbled together. Milk containers, softdrink bottles, yoghurt containers (which are apparently not recycled according to the Council website) - all thrown into a huge heap.

This led me to two conclusions:

Transfer station staff are not trained to differentiate between different plastic types and are lumping them all together, or

There is no market for any of the plastics so they are being bundled up and dumped somewhere.

Having seen this heap I wondered why I'd bothered spending time separating recyclable plastics into the different bins if they were just going to end up together.

Time to charge the manufacturers

I think it is high time drink manufacturers were charged a hefty levy to cover the cost of recycling softdrink bottles.

As a nation we should be examining

why so much softdrink is being consumed and

why we are not using returnable glass bottles

Apparently softdrink is the top-selling supermarket item. This is creating a huge environmental problem and is already causing significant health problems that are going to cost the country dearly in years to come.

Health professionals tell me they regularly have to try and wean people off three two-litre softdrink bottles per day.

September 19, 2009

Widespread bee deaths are the focus of attention at Apimonda, the World Apiculture Congress, according to a report on Seed Daily

Across parts of North America and swathes of Europe, but also now in
patches of Asia, bee hives have been struck by a mysterious ailment
dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

At normal times, bee communities naturally lose around five percent of
their numbers. But in CCD, a third, a half -- sometimes even 90 percent
-- of the insects can be wiped out. Eerily, no bodies are typically
found near the hive.

The phenomenon is alarming for beekeepers, many of them small-scale
operators or hobbyists, who lack the clout and subsidy support that
other agricultural sectors enjoy.

But food experts and environmental scientists are also worried.
The Western honey bee is a vital link in the food chain, fertilising nearly 100 kinds of crops.

Around a third of the food on our plates gets there thanks to Apis mellifera.By some estimates, this unseen, unsung work is worth more than 200
billion dollars a year, often through hives that are trucked to
monoculture farms to do pollinating magic at specific times of the
year.

Wild bees, bats and other pollinators are simply not numerous
enough to do the trick.
So when honey bees and beekeeping are devastated, the impact for large-scale agricultural production is clear.

"In China, fruit farmers in Sichuan are having to hand-pollinate their
orchards," says Henri Clement, president of the National Union of
French Beekeepers.

Despite intense investigation, the cause of CCD remains unclear.
Mooted culprits include a blood-sucking mite called varroa; a single-celled fungal parasite called Nosema cerenae that causes bee dystentery and pesticides used in fields that are pollinated by bees.

Fingers in Europe have also pointed at an intruder, the Asian hornet,
Vespa velutina, which lurks near hives and captures the poor honey bee
in flight and devours it.

Other proferred explanations include poor nutrition -- that mega farms, stripped of hedgerows and wild flowers, and
spreading suburbs, with their concrete, roads and lawns, are depriving
bees of a decent diet.

Despite the many suspects, there has been no conviction, or at least
none that singly explains why bee colonies should be collapsing in so
many parts of the world at the same time. Climate change may also be an
aggravating factor, say some experts.

One possibility is that CCD is a complex web of factors.
Last month, entomologists at the University of Illinois reported that
bees in CCD-ravaged hives had high levels of damaged ribosomes -- a key
protein-making machine within cells.
Their ribosomes appear to have been hijacked by so-called picornia-like
viruses, which seize control of cellular machinary to make it crank out
only viral components.
Picorna-like viruses are carried by the varroa mite, which has spread
by being accidentally introduced through commercial transactions of
bees.
"If your ribosome is compromised, then you can't respond to pesticides, you can't respond to fungal infections or bacteria or inadequate nutrition because the ribosome is central to the survival organism," said researcher May Berenbaum.

Meanwhile, researchers at Britain's University of Leeds have begun a
three-year study to see if the bees' decline could have an earthier
cause -- a lack of variety in the sex life of queen bees.
They are investigating whether a decreasing number of potential mates
means colonies are becoming less genetically diverse and more prone to
disease.

September 16, 2009

turned its back on a lucrative
contract with Greater Wellington regional council because of the
authority's insistence on using paper [Sapphire Offset] the printer says is sourced from
Indonesia.

Printcraft's General Manager, Lance Johnson, says

the paper specified by
GWRC is produced by Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). The
pulp and paper giant has been at the centre of many environmental
controversies and has been accused of being involved in illegal logging
in Cambodia and Indonesia.

Because Printcraft refuses to use paper from APP it no longer has a contract with Greater Wellington Regional Council.

Lance Johnson's email to the regional council says it all:

"We wish to make it very clear that our resignation as a preferred
print supplier to GWRC is because of your continued unwillingness to
properly examine the reasons why you should not continue to specify
Sapphire Offset - a dereliction of duty that makes a mockery of the
council's sustainability claims."

An internet search revealed that Printcraft was not alone in being concerned about APP's environmental practices. Examples include office supply giant Staples Inc. dropping APP as a supplier due to concerns over its environmental performance.

Ironically the printing jobs at issue were pamphlets to support the regional council's environmental initatives.